Dorn the dragon slayer

Comments

@subtledoctor Again, the size isn't an issue. Blackguards and assasin's are coating their blades in this poison. Even if it was jsut straight Viper venom, one drop can kill mass equal to a couple dozen humans. How many drops do you think it takes to coat an entire blade? How much mass do you think the dragon sprites have compared to the several thousand humans that could be killed by the poison coating a long sword?

@subtledoctor Again, the size isn't an issue. Blackguards and assasin's are coating their blades in this poison. Even if it was jsut straight Viper venom, one drop can kill mass equal to a couple dozen humans. How many drops do you think it takes to coat an entire blade? How much mass do you think the dragon sprites have compared to the several thousand humans that could be killed by the poison coating a long sword?

That doesn't make any sense because the poison is not even strong enough to kill Minsc. Repeated dosings can, but my point is, to kill a frackin' dragon, it should take more poison than "about twice as much as it takes to kill Minsc."

Well, remember there's only 2 classes in the game that can actually use poisoned weapons, 1 is a Blackguard, the other an Assassin, neither particularly known for attacking Dragons nor traditionally even travelling as part of a group.

There are also some store bought poisoned weapons and ammo. Arrows of biting, daggers of venom, and so forth.

I think the idea is more that the Blackguard and the Assassin are the only ones who can make their own poisons.

Well, remember there's only 2 classes in the game that can actually use poisoned weapons, 1 is a Blackguard, the other an Assassin, neither particularly known for attacking Dragons nor traditionally even travelling as part of a group.

There are also some store bought poisoned weapons and ammo. Arrows of biting, daggers of venom, and so forth.

I think the idea is more that the Blackguard and the Assassin are the only ones who can make their own poisons.

Very true, they are also the only poisons (outside of the Priests Poison Spell) that increase with level. As for whether or not they are magical then i'll simply ask you how a priest creates poison. *drops mic* Not to say the other forms ARE definitely Magical, but the real question is why you would assume Dorn's is not, given he's an Evil Paladin and it would seem reasonable to state he gets his poison ability via magic from his Patron much like a priest gets their spell from their God, AKA Magic.

Again, the assassin's poison is not magical though. Since the Assassin is not an otherwise magical class, it stands to reason that its poison is also mundane. The assassin's poison functions identically to the blackguard's poison.

Even if you handwave the blackguard's poison as "It's magic and that's why it works like that", the question remains of why the Assassin's poison works like that.

Again, the assassin's poison is not magical though. Since the Assassin is not an otherwise magical class, it stands to reason that its poison is also mundane. The assassin's poison functions identically to the blackguard's poison.

Even if you handwave the blackguard's poison as "It's magic and that's why it works like that", the question remains of why the Assassin's poison works like that.

Who says the Assassin poison isn't magical? I just checked 2nd Ed DMG and it clearly states Assassin of 9th level and above can create poisons at the base cost for the poison type, it's in the section of the DMG titled "Magical Research". So it's clearly classed as Magical research to create it for the assassin, then you get into the various different poison types, of which there are MANY, so i won't go into too much detail except to say that the weaker ones are possible to make via Herbalism skill, but the stronger ones are not and are, again, classed as Magical.

Based on the rules you can either buy poison (subject to DM ruling which types are available, if any), make weak poison via Herbalism, stronge via Alchemy, deadly via either a 9th level or higher Assassin or the same rules that allow for item creation which is restricted to Spellcasters as it requires Magic.

As i have said before the poison rules in the game are simplified, but based on source material then deadly poisons are considered Magical as per the DMG. There's nothing in either the thiefs handbook or the DMG that states an Assassin has to gather materials or do any harvesting of venomous creatures, although item creation rules may require it depending on the DM, kinda depends if you want to make it into a side-adventure/story or just have a cost involved.

There is also a Goddess that has poisons as part of their domain, another indication that the most deadly poisons are likely to be entirely magical/divine in nature.

No, he doesn't use VENOM he uses POISON, 1 is naturally produced, 1 is not, so no he doesn't get it from insects, at least not without some processing involved which would seem unlikely given Dorn's not known for his Bio-chemistry Phd lol.

No, he doesn't use VENOM he uses POISON, 1 is naturally produced, 1 is not, so no he doesn't get it from insects, at least not without some processing involved which would seem unlikely given Dorn's not known for his Bio-chemistry Phd lol.

That's not the difference between venom and poison at all.

venomˈvɛnəm/Submitnounnoun: venom; plural noun: venomsa poisonous substance secreted by animals such as snakes, spiders, and scorpions and typically injected into prey or aggressors by biting or stinging.

poisonˈpɔɪz(ə)n/Submitnounnoun: poison; plural noun: poisons1.a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed.

Venom is naturally produced, poison is ANYTHING and therefore includes artificially produced toxins. That was the entire point of the comment i made, that by calling it POISON and not VENOM it confirms it is not naturally produced.

Now can you poison someone with Venom, yes, but if you were to coat a blade in a poison that was a poisonous substance secreted by animals such as snakes, spiders, and scorpions and typically injected into prey or aggressors by biting or stinging." it would be correct English to refer to that as Venom, UNLESS it has been altered via artificial means in which case calling it Poison, such as it is in game, would be correct.

So if you want to be pedantic you could argue that i was incorrect to claim Poison was not natural, but that doesn't factor in the specifics of the argument in this thread as i was merely pointing out that IN THIS CASE you cannot claim the POISON is a VENOM because if it was it would be correct to label it as such. Ergo, the act of labeling it as poison confirms that it is not venom in this context.

Unless you can prove the devs incorrectly called it Poison when it should be Venom there is no argument. None of the source material indicates this is the case incidentally.

Again, the assassin's poison is not magical though. Since the Assassin is not an otherwise magical class, it stands to reason that its poison is also mundane.

The assassin has a trap that can literally stop time. Is that also mundane?

They get that at very high level, and the ability description specifically says it's magic, because that's unusual for the assassin.

If we're just gonna assume everything is magic unless otherwise stated then I guess nothing has to make sense ever. *eyeroll*

Just google the 2nd Ed dmg pdf, thieves Handbook 2nd ed pdf, 2nd ed players handbook and read for yourself, it's quite annoying to have people pick at comments they don't agree with when they cannot even be bothered to check facts for themselves. We get it, you like to win arguments, most people do, you just happen to be lacking key information so kindly do your own research because frankly it's actually got nothing to do with the original posters statement and the whole thread is barely hanging onto the topic, which was to comment on a Dragon killing strategy that's pretty effective and anyone that disagrees with using said strategy can SIMPLY NOT USE IT.

Dude, I saw your comment explaining all that stuff. Even marked it as "Insightful".

Just didn't have much to say about it. It's fine.

Edit: If anything you seem like the one who's caught up in trying to "Win" the argument instead of just having a conversation. I admitted you were right two days ago when you pointed out that because of the dragons Hitpoint Pool it takes more poison to kill it than a smaller creature.

Still every time I continue the conversation past that point you just go really hard as if the argument's still going.

Look man, it's not worth arguing over, no one wants to read it and it's not the place anyway.

It's a great strategy for killing most Dragons and all the talk of insect poisons, size, magical or not isn't really related and ALL of those side-subjects can simply be googled and fact checked by anyone who cares.

FYI 2nd edition AD&D has the largest amount of source books, all of which can be found online if you have an idea what to look for, i played the system for 8 yrs straight and barely touched 20%, you can find an answer for almost everything you can think of, if not in an actual source book then perhaps via official Gary Gygax updates or rules clarifications.

Who says the Assassin poison isn't magical? I just checked 2nd Ed DMG and it clearly states Assassin of 9th level and above can create poisons at the base cost for the poison type, it's in the section of the DMG titled "Magical Research".

Annoyingly, I just took 5 minutes to actually do this, and in fact the DMG says nothing of the sort at all...

Could we cease the incessant noise about magical poison mechanics in a fantasy universe? 'Tis such a pain behind the eyes!

Hey, listen. I just noticed this was your thread. With that in mind I was a jerk for responding to this with further discussion on that front. I want to apologize for that. I should've started up my own thread if I wanted to continue the discussion.

So wait, being thick here (excuse me please) but this poison weapon thing goes through "stoneskins"? If so, that's absurd.

What I 'd like to see, don't know if it could ever be implemented, would be for stoneskins to blunt weapons over time, iron skins and barkskin the same proportionally.Also a chance to actually shatter a weapon, that would be cool, even magical ones.

Keep attacking stoneskins, you should end up with a butter knife (and not Baldurons).

Well, I should say it *was* great.With SoD and 2.3 it's been nerfed into near uselessness.First if offers a save = good luck gettting it to proc on actually tough foes.There's a paltry no save damage but who cares.Then it's also once/round so good luck getting it to do but a 1/1000th of a dragons or anything with decent HP at all.And then it also fails at being a good mage killer because at that point you might as well spam magic missiles or a cloudkill wand since those are far more reliable than a 1/round chance of poison.RIP fun times with poison.

Powerful magical creature that can breath inferno killed by some fecking poison? I mean, the fact that dragons in BG2 can be killed by a normal (yep!) weapons is insulting enough.

There can be a situation: powerful fighter in full plate armor swarmed by ants - metaphorically.or receving a poisoned blade in the gut through small crack between the plates (IRL it was very improbable).but Firkraag is not in this kind of situation.Smaug destroyed entire dwarven ARMY before he was killed by a pure hearted simpleton using special antidragonator weapon thanks to 100% luck seriously. In my "ideal" BG2, dragons should be EXTREMELY powerful foes but at the same time extremely "bored" giving you the quest as a choice instead of a (hopeless!) fight, with comparable xp and rewards.